Added to all this is the fact that curation rewards end after an article's first 24 hours, which means that there is literally no explicit incentive to find good content that simply got "missed" in its first day. Curation lists are fine, but how do you ever get on one if you're new?

This is why I'm launching the Lost Content Digest, where I'm explicitly creating my own incentive to find "missed" articles. Each issue of the Digest will feature several articles that are good, but didn't get paid on Day 1. Then I'll distribute the SBD proceeds of each issue to the feature authors. This way, curators who vote for me will get paid, even though they're partially effectively voting for missed articles.

Check out Issue #2: https://steemit.com/lostcontent-digest/@biophil/lost-content-digest-2-all-proceeds-go-to-featured-authors